Along with his contributions to IEN, he also serves on the boards of the Southwest Research and Information Center, Red Rock Foundation, as well as the Laguna Acoma Coalition For A Safe Environment, of which he is a founding member. He has served as a delegate of Indigenous Peoples at United Nations conferences, forums, and summits to include the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Manuel received the 2008 Nuclear Free Future Award for activism in Munich Germany. He has published several book chapters, and articles in academic, environmental, and Indigenous publications in both the U.S. and Canada during his thirty eight plus years of work. Manuel is currently working with former American Indian uranium miners in New Mexico, Arizona, Washington and South Dakota on health issues related to radiation exposure and in Indigenous communities opposing nuclear waste storage and mining on their lands.

She was raised in a traditional lifestyle of subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering by elders who taught her that land is critical to their subsistent lifeways and must be held in high regard. Her community lives a way of life that is aligned with the seasons and everything is interconnected. The physical, spiritual, cultural, social and economic means are dependent on the natural environment. Protection of the environment is critical to our survival, as well as our future generations. Her Gwich’in Nation is in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada along the migratory route of the Porcupine Caribou herd. In 1988, the Gwich’in Nation came together to discuss the threat of proposed oil and gas development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and sought a permanent protection of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit_The Sacred Place Where Life Begins), the primary birthplace and nursery of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. When Faith graduated high school, she was asked to go to Washington DC to address members of congress on the issue. She was mentored by Goldman Environmental Prize awardee and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge activist Sarah James. Faith is grateful to have been taught by dynamic and powerful elders, leaders and chiefs to fight for her people. She says she did not choose her life, it was chosen for her by her elders, and leaders. Currently Faith is the Tribal Court Clerk for Venetie Village Council and a Tribal Justice advocate. She also served as the Tribal Court Administrator, Tribal Justice Director and ICWA Specialist and served on the Arctic Village Council. She is now engaged in personal and community healing and wellness. She is the founder and past Executive Director of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands), a grassroots network and movement that was created by Alaska Natives to share knowledge, experience and strategies to address the detrimental impacts of fossil fuel, mining and climate change in Alaska. The core principles of REDOIL uphold the self -determination rights of Tribes in Alaska as well as a just transition from fossil fuel and mineral development to sustainable economies and sustainable development. Faith also served as the Program Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, working in defense of Gwich’in ancestral way of life by seeking permanent protection of “Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit” (The Sacred Place Where Life Begins) coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which is the primary birthplace and nursery of the Porcupine Caribou Herd upon which the Gwich’in Nation relies on to meet their subsistence needs. She joined the board of Indigenous Environmental Network in January, 2023. She currently is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council and the Vice-President of the California Indian Environmental Alliance. She previously served as an Executive Council member on the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, as a board member of Honor the Earth, the National Wildlife Federation and Project Underground. She enjoys sewing, cooking, baking and cultural activities.

As a lifelong activist, Sayokla, from a very early age, spoke out against alcoholism, child and sexual abuse, and represented her community’s youth as Jr. Miss Oneida and Miss Oneida, twice. She received an academic scholarship from Mount Holyoke College, an ivy-league women’s college in Massachusetts and graduated with a B.A. in Sociology. While completing her degree at Holyoke, Sayokla led a campaign and organized direct actions demanding that the new school administration maintain current and sustainable scholarship funding levels for women of color and not be reduced as was planned at the time. Soon after graduation, she was hired by IEN as the Mining Campaign Coordinator working with frontline communities through education, training, direct action, media support, and international work through the United Nations. Sayokla has worked as a Native American Sexual Assault Advocate and continues to educate on the connections between gender violence and the destruction of Mother Earth. She is currently the Indigenous Caucus Coordinator for the Western Mining Action Network.

She has been a social and environmental justice organizer for 20 years and worked for several years in Natural Resource Management for the Spokane Tribe. She was recognized by the USEPA for outstanding community education and outreach through the production of “InnerTribal Beat,” a Native American news and music show focused on environmental news in the Northwest. Twa-le was nationally recognized by the private and nonprofit sectors for her community advocacy work on indoor air and water quality and radon issues in Indian Country. She currently works for the Washington State Human Rights Commission as a civil rights investigator. Twa-le and her mother Deb Abrahamson, also a Spokane Tribal member, founded SHAWL (Sovereignty, Health, Air, Water, Land) Society, a grassroots organization based on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Eastern Washington state. The Spokane Reservation is home to two open pit uranium mines and a uranium processing mill located upstream from their family home. Community organizing efforts focus on environmental justice, health risk factors and preventative strategies, education about the effects of radiation and heavy metals, and pathways of exposure to toxins including traditional, medicinal, and subsistence foods and plants.

Later, he took part in the Indigenous led resistance to Line 3 and Line 5 Enbridge pipelines and he continues to organize against the Back 40 mine to stop the destruction of Indigenous Menominee burial mounds and sacred sites. His work with IEN is important to him, saying he is passionate about correcting flawed environmental policies that threaten Indigenous lands, waters and air leading to the disproportionate and unjust bearing of the burden of extractive industrial waste. Justice is dedicated to organizing around exploitative and environmentally destructive projects threatening Indigenous peoples. He is an avid mountain bike cyclist and looks forward each year to fat-tire biking in the winter.

She has authored numerous articles including “Decolonizing Colonial Constructions of Indigenous Identity: A Conversation Between Debra Harry and Leonie Pihama”, in “The Great Vanishing Act: Blood Quantum and the Future of Native Nations, “Biocolonialism and Indigenous Knowledge in United Nations Discourse,” (2011) 20 Griffith Law Review, “Indigenous Peoples and Gene Disputes” 84 Chicago-Kent Law Review (2009). Dr. Harry is a recipient of the Nevada Department of Education Pesa Namanedu Award (2019), the Seventh Generation Fund Tradition Bearers for Biocultural Diversity Fellowship (2018), the Seventh Generation Fund Good Ancestor Award (2012), and the Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellowship (KNFP-14). Her teaching specialization is in Indigenous Studies, and she is playing a key role in developing Indigenous Studies course offerings at UNR. Dr. Harry earned her Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland under the supervision of renowned Maori scholar, Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith. She served as an adjunct professor at UNR in 2013, was hired as a Lecturer III in 2018, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. Dr. Debra Harry is Numu (Kooyooe Tukadu) from Pyramid Lake, Nevada.

She co-founded the Native Community Engagement and Peacemaking Project that provides facilitation and community engagement services in strategic planning, dispute resolution, and peacemaking circles throughout the country. She works in partnership as a consultant with the Swinomish Department of Environmental Protection’s Climate Change Resiliency Project. She also is a co-chair on the Swinomish Protect Mother Earth subcommittee and holds a seat on the Swinomish Higher Education Community Advisory Board. She currently works as the Indigenous Leadership Program Director at the Na’ah Illahee Fund. Shelly developed a place-based curriculum about the history and culture of the Swinomish peoples and taught a series of cultural sovereignty courses for over 10 years at the Northwest Indian College Native Studies Leadership Program, and is helping to develop a Swinomish Lushootseed Language Program. Previously her team provided leadership and consultation for the Lummi Cedar Project Organized Generations Healthy Lifestyles Program. She has served as president for Indigenous Women’s Network and as a campaign director for the Indigenous Environmental Network. She received several years of formal dispute resolution training from the Indian Dispute Resolution Services and the San Francisco Community Boards Program. She has an M.Ed. in Higher Education and practices indigenous pedagogy and indigenous research methodology within all aspects of her work. Shelly practices the ancient form of meditation known as Qi Gong daily for balance, energy, and resiliency. Her motto is, “There is nothing permanent in the world but change, the key is how we flow with it.”

The sole proprietor of Plumer Law Office in Bemidji, MN, he has specialized in the representation of Tribal Governments and Tribal gaming enterprises and has provided service to many Tribal courts as a Tribal court judge. Serving as General Legal Counsel to the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians he provided a variety of legal services, including consultation and representation in various tribal economic development projects; representation in multiple litigation matters; representation in fee to trust processes; negotiate government to government agreements between the Band and various federal and state agencies; and represent the Tribal Gaming Commission in all aspects of gaming regulation at the Band’s three gaming properties. He also served as Special Legal Counsel to the Red Lake Band. Joseph served as a Tribal court judge for the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa Tribal Court; the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians Tribal Court; the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court as Special Magistrate for the Tribal Court and Pro Tem Judge of the Mille Lacs Band Court of Appeals; Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe as an Administrative Hearing Officer for the Leech Lake Band’s Gaming Division hearing appeals of employment terminations, having also previously served as Chief Judge of the Leech Lake Tribal Court and Tribal Attorney. At White Earth Band of Ojibwe, he served as General Legal Counsel where he established an in-house Legal Department. At Prairie Island Indian Community he was Assistant General Counsel while maintaining a private law practice in Apple Valley, MN. He also was employed as the Corporate Attorney for Little Six, Inc., the corporate arm of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community where he promoted tribal sovereignty, Indian gaming, employment law, commercial contract negotiation and civil litigation matters. Additionally, he was a part-time public defender in the First Judicial District of Minnesota. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Joseph was an Assistant Attorney General in the Minnesota Attorney General’s office in both the Department of Transportation and the Public Safety Division. Prior to those positions, he was in-house counsel for the White Earth Ojibwe Housing Authority and then served as a Tribal Court Judge for White Earth. In 1983, as a recipient of a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship, he was placed at Anishinabe Legal Services at Cass Lake, MN, working primarily in the areas of family law, housing law, debtor/creditor law, and public benefits law. Additionally, he represented defendants in the Leech Lake and White Earth Conservation Courts. He is licensed to practice law in all state and federal courts in Minnesota and in several Tribal courts including Leech Lake, White Earth, Bois Forte, Red Lake and Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. He is a founding board member in several organizations including the Minnesota American Indian Bar Association, Regional Native Criminal Defense Corporation, Naytahwaush Community Charter School, Indian Child Welfare Center and the 1855 Treaty Authority. He is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, and the Tribal Judicial Leadership Team. Along with his position as an IEN board member, he sits on the board of directors of Anishinabe Legal Services. His hobbies include family activities, physical fitness, classic cars, and reading.